


Fortune Cookies

by Korrigan131



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-20
Updated: 2012-04-23
Packaged: 2017-11-15 08:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Korrigan131/pseuds/Korrigan131
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rob and Felipe go out for dinner, twice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. China

**Author's Note:**

> Unrequited Rob/Felipe. Implied Felipe/Rafaella.

“You’re not meant to open it yet, Felipe.” Rob watches as Felipe freezes, the driver paused in the middle of his chewing and with his hand hovering over the shiny red wrapper. “Not until after the food.”  
   
“But I want to know what it says.”  
   
Or at least, that's what Rob _thinks_ he mumbles around his mouthful. He has found that Felipe is surprisingly adept with chopsticks, and has a tendency to continue shovelling food into his mouth even when he wants to speak, as if he’ll forget how to use them if he stops even for a moment.  
  
“Well you’ll have to wait.”  
  
Felipe pouts briefly, and then redoubles his efforts to stuff his face. Rob just rolls his eyes, deciding not to even bother warning him about indigestion, or telling him to savour the taste. It’s like dealing with a child sometimes.  
  
Rob is still only halfway through his meal (thanks to his comparatively inferior chopstick skills) when Felipe leans back in his chair and sighs contentedly, pushing his now-almost-spotless bowl away.  
  
“Can I open it now?”  
  
“I’m not done yet,” Rob replies.  
  
“You did not say you had to finish too,” Felipe pouts again.  
  
“It’s polite.” _Definitely a child_. The only reply he gets is an unimpressed huff, but the cookie remains unopened.  
  
Felipe fidgets relentlessly, alternating commenting on every other guest in the restaurant (sometimes making Rob snort horribly with laughter) with flicking at the menu, playing with his phone, and twiddling his chopsticks, eventually dropping them on the floor with a clatter. Rob considers giving in, but then again, he’s sat through much worse...  
  
Eventually, Rob lays his chopsticks down. They’ve barely touched the table before Felipe has torn open the wrapper and snapped his cookie in half, popping one half straight into his mouth, and pulling the strip of paper out of the other.  
  
“Go on then, what’s it say?” Rob asks.  
  
Felipe frowns. “ _All the water of the oceans cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside_. I am not sure I understand...”  
  
“It means that whatever goes on around you doesn’t matter, and won’t affect you unless you let it get into your head.” He punctuates the last words with playful taps on Felipe’s temple. “Pretty appropriate for you, I’d say. Y’know, a ‘ _don’t let it get you down_ ’ kinda thing.”  
  
Felipe tilts his head to one side and thinks about it for a moment. “Maybe... Yes, I like that.”  
  
“You should take it to heart, kiddo.”  
  
Felipe grins. “Anyway, now tell me yours.”  
  
Rob opens his cookie and looks at the fortune.  
  
When he doesn’t say anything, Felipe leans over his shoulder to look.  
  
“ _You can still love what you cannot have in life_.” Felipe frowns dismissively. “Hmph. Mine was better, for sure.”  
  
Rob blinks, and then scrunches his hand shut around the fortune.  
  
“No, not a very good one, that. Never mind.” He glances at his watch. “ _Anyway_ , we need to pay up and get on - Rafaella will be wondering where you’ve got to.”  
  
Felipe shrugs noncommittally. “Is fine, she will be busy with Felipinho.”  
  
“Still, ought to get you home, we’re on track tomorrow after all.” Rob digs his wallet out, and starts flicking through to find the right currency. Felipe sighs and follows suit, rummaging in his pocket.  
  
Rob glances up to check that Felipe isn’t looking, and then tucks the little fortune in amongst his credit cards, allowing himself the smallest of rueful smiles as he does. But any further melancholy thoughts are interrupted by a heap of notes plopped onto the table, and Felipe declaring that Rob should deal with the bill because he’s _much_ better with the numbers, for sure.  
  
Rob smiles, genuinely. Because, well, it could be worse. He’s here, isn’t he? Alive and well and quite content to hang out together. And that’ll have to do. Even if he has just stolen the last of Rob’s beer without so much as a by-your-leave...


	2. England

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another night of food and fortune cookies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was demanded that I write a fluffy sequel to the previous chapter, so here it is!

It was on the way back from their dinner out in China that Rob discovered that Felipe had never sampled the delights of what the engineer referred to as “proper” Chinese food (being the entirely westernised version, addictively tasty and packed with MSG and additives), having stuck to the authentic, genuine article. Horrified, Rob had promised (or was that _threatened_? Felipe wasn’t sure, from the sound of it...) that when they were back in the UK they would make a trip up to his favourite Chinese place, even if it meant flying over early to achieve it, and show Felipe how the British could take any foreign cuisine and bastardise it into superiority. Or at least that was Rob’s opinion on the matter.  
  
So that was how the two men ended up in the tiny restaurant, a warm and friendly little place in the grey and drizzly streets of northern Britain that hadn’t changed in all the years that Rob had been making his increasingly sporadic visits, days before anyone else from Ferrari had even touched down in the country.  
  
It’s another night of Felipe eating probably much faster than was good for him, leaving his plate virtually spotless, and teasing Rob relentlessly for being so much slower until he gives in and uses a fork. They share a bottle of wine, and laugh and talk about very little to do with racing. And then order a second bottle, just because they can, until they're lounging contentedly in their seats, very full and more than just slightly tipsy, giggling together over nothing at all. It’s another one of their perfect nights, the type that Rob keeps locked away in his memory, along with so many others, and that he wouldn’t swap for the world.  
  
When the bill eventually arrives, there are two familiar, shiny red packages on the metal plate. Felipe’s eyes light up, and Rob can’t help but laugh fondly.  
  
“Alright, alright, you go first.”  
  
Felipe grins and tears open the wrapper, crunching contentedly on one half of the cookie as he pulls the paper from the other. Rob waits for him to read his fortune out, but Felipe’s face falls into a confused frown.  
  
“I need another cookie.”  
  
“Eh? What’s wrong with that one?”  
  
“Look, it says I need another.” Felipe waves the piece of paper at Rob, and was already hailing a waitress before Rob had chance to hold it still enough to read.  
  
“ _The fortune you seek is in another cookie_.” Rob bursts out laughing, and keeps laughing as Felipe confronts the waitress, who ignores his insistent protestations and calmly explains that it’s bad luck to have more than one. Felipe, though, is not convinced, and Rob decides to intervene before things get _too_ heated, because he’d quite like to be able to come back here in the future...  
  
“It’s ok, don’t worry,” he apologises to the waitress, before offering the remaining cookie to Felipe. “Look, you can have mine if you’re that bothered. I’m not fussed.”  
  
Felipe doesn’t take it. “But that is yours.”  
  
“Yes, I know, but you clearly want it more than I do. It’s just a cookie.”  
  
Felipe eyes the packet suspiciously. “But the fortune will be for you...”  
  
Rob raises his eyebrows. “ _Really_ , Felipe?”  
  
The driver pouts, and relents, gingerly taking the cookie and unwrapping it warily. Rob swipes the other half of the previous cookie whilst Felipe isn’t looking.  
  
Once again, Felipe doesn't look impressed. This time though, Rob notices the flush that creeps up his neck and onto his cheeks.  
  
“C’mon F’lipe, what’s it say?”  
  
“Nothing!” he replies, slightly higher pitched than normal and far too quickly, hastily trying to stuff the fortune into his pocket. But Rob is too quick, and lunges for it, laughing as he tries to prise open the fingers of the loudly protesting Brazilian. “No, no no no, _no_ , mine!” A quick (and practiced) poke to the ribs makes Felipe giggle and wriggle until he lets go, and Rob has read it before Felipe can snatch it back.  
  
“ _The love of your life is sitting across the table_.”  
  
Rob’s first reaction is to laugh, firstly, because how appallingly clichéd is that? and secondly, because Felipe’s got no reason to be reacting like that. Now if _Rob_ had opened it, well that would be a different matter, but the engineer is relieved to have dodged a bullet there rather.  
  
But Felipe is definitely not finding it funny, instead practically squirming in his seat and his eyes anywhere but on Rob. If Rob were to pick an adjective, it would be _mortified_. Rob stops laughing, as the thought, and then a whole chain of thoughts, hits him, hard. _Oh_.  
  
“I don’t know why you’re looking so worried.” Rob keeps his voice low and careful, and the tone makes Felipe’s gaze snap up to meet his. “After all, you were the one saying this was _my_ fortune.” There’s a glimmer of something that’s very clearly _hope_ in the driver’s otherwise guarded expression, and Rob’s thankful that he’s had plenty of experience in reading Felipe from just his eyes - after all, there’s not much else to go on when said person is often wearing a helmet.  
  
“The cookie said it was mine.” Felipe replies, quietly. It would be a ridiculous sentence in any other situation.  
  
“Maybe it’s both of ours?” Rob ventures. Felipe’s eyes flicker as emotions run in quick succession behind them, clearing eventually into _understanding_.  
  
“You think so?”  
  
Rob shrugs with a hopeful half smile, and it’s his turn to look anywhere but at Felipe. There’s silence for a moment, and Rob thinks he’s blown it.  
  
If Rob could read Felipe’s mind though, he’d see the memory of all those months ago and five thousand miles away, of the engineer staring wistfully at a little slip of paper when he thought the driver wasn’t looking. And then it really, _finally_ , clicks in Felipe’s head.  
  
“The last one was wrong,” he announces, quietly but definitely. Rob looks up again. “That you cannot have what you love. You can. If you want.”  
  
“Please tell me we’re talking about the same thing here.” Because ruining what they already have isn’t something Rob even wants to contemplate.  
  
Felipe reaches out and closes Rob’s fingers around the fortune, eyes serious and dark, and his touch lingering on Rob’s skin.  
  
“I am thinking that perhaps two hotel rooms for tonight was a mistake.”  
  
Rob isn’t usually impulsive, but he’s had an entire bottle of dutch courage tonight, and nothing, _nothing_ is more important than getting out of there and back to their hotel _right now_. He has no idea how much money he just emptied onto the dish (beyond the fact that he’s overpaid significantly and his wallet is now totally empty), but it really doesn’t matter, because he’s grinning like a madman and already dragging Felipe out of the restaurant by the wrist, and it’s a _very_ good thing indeed that their hotel isn’t far away...


End file.
